For a rapid manufacturing and final fitting of hearing devices, such as individually customized behind the ear or in-the-ear hearing aids, the process usually starts with taking an impression of the shape of the ear. The shape of this impression will than have to be digitized for instance by means of a scanning device. The first step must actually be performed with the user of the hearing device present at the location of the dispenser, whilst the following steps may be done either at the location of the dispenser or at the hearing device manufacturing center. With the digitized data of the outer shape of the hearing device, the shell of this hearing device may be typically manufactured by means of dedicated shell modeling software at the hearing device manufacturing center. This software produces a digital representation of the shell shape and the shell of the hearing device is then produced using a direct manufacturing process such as selective-laser sintering, stereo lithography or digital light processing. After assembling of the shell and the electronic and/or mechanical components of the hearing device, the hearing device is shipped to the dispenser for the final fitting according to the individual needs of the user of this device.
Although such a manufacturing process saves a reasonable amount of time for manufacturing individually shaped or customized hearing devices, the final process of fitting this device to the individual needs of the user is still time consuming and mostly based on empirically defined starting points or parameters and often leads to a lengthy series of trial and error steps until reaching the final result.
In absence of the exact geometric data, the input parameters for the fitting process dependent on the geometry of the shell and/or the ear will initially be set based on standard values or standardized estimates. During the fitting process, the parameters will then have to be adjusted by the mentioned trial and error principle to reach the desired result.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a method for estimating or defining more appropriate input parameters for starting the fitting process for a hearing device. It is a further object of the present invention to improve the manufacturing process of hearing devices by shortening the fitting process by providing individually adapted starting parameters of a good quality.